The Coudenhoves were Catholic barons with estates in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège and the Lower Rhine region and were raised to the rank of counts of the Holy Roman Empire in 1790.

By the marriage of Maximilian François de Coudenhove (1700–1742) and baroness Maria Adolphina Reuschenberg, the family also inherited the estate of Setterich (near Aachen) in the Duchy of Jülich.

The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806, the prominent position of imperial counts was mediatised and ecclesiastical states like the prince-archbishopric of Mainz were secularised.

During the Napoleonic Wars, three of Sophie's four sons moved to the Austrian Empire, taking up positions in the military, imperial household, Catholic clergy and the Order of Malta.

The eldest son, Carl (1774–1838), sold the acres in Setterich in 1813 and acquired the estate of Jindice (Inditz) in central Bohemia instead, marking the family's relocation from the Rhineland to the Habsburg monarchy.